School of Cork

The monastic School of Cork had a
wide reputation, especially in the seventh and eighth centuries.
The name is derived from the Irish corcagh, which means a
marsh, for in ancient times the floods of the River Lee covered
the low ground on which most of the present city of Cork was
afterwards built. The founder of the School and Diocese of Cork
was Barra or Bairre (Barry), more commonly called Finbarr the
Fair-haired. His family belonged to the Hy Brinin Ratha, a tribe
that dwelt on the eastern shore of Lough Corrib, in the County
Galway; but his father, a skilful cerd, or certified worker
in brass, was forced to migrate to Hy Liathain, in the west of the
County Cork, where the saint was born about the middle of the
sixth century. His chief teacher was a certain MacCuirp, or
Curporius, who himself, it is said, had been a student under St.
Gregory the Great in Rome. To perfect himself in the science of
the saints, Barra retired to a hermitage in a small island of the
lonely lake which still bears his name, Gougane Barra. Callanan's
splendid poem in praise of the romantic beauty of this lake has
made its name familiar to all Irishmen. From Gougane Barra, it
would appear, Barra returned to his native territory, where he
founded some dozen churches before he finally established himself
near the marsh of Lough Eirc (Eirce), which appears to have been
the original name of the place. There he founded a monastic school
about 620, which in a short time attracted a multitude of students
and produced many great scholars. The Irish "Life of Finbarr"
gives the names of a dozen of these holy and learned men, who in
turn became founders of churches and schools in the South of
Ireland. The most distinguished of them was St. Colman Mac Ua
Cluasaigh, Ferlegind or professor in the School of Cork
about the year 664.

At that time all Ireland was
devastated by a terrible yellow plague which carried off
two-thirds of the population. There was a prevalent idea that the
pestilence could not, or at least did not, extend beyond nine
waves from the shore. So Colman and his pupils wisely resolved to
migrate from their monastery in the marshes of Cork to one of the
islands in the high sea. Being a poet and a holy man he composed a
poem, mostly in Irish, committing himself and his pupils to the
protection of God and His saints, especially the patron saints of
Erin. As they sought their island refuge the students chanted the
poem verse by verse, each one reciting his own stanza until it was
finished, and then they began again. Fortunately most of this poem
still survives, and is printed in the "Leabhar Imuin" or
"Book of Hymns" (edited by J. H. Todd, Dublin, 1855-69).
The language is of the most archaic type of Gaelic, and is
interspersed here and there with phrases mostly taken from
Scripture but made to rhyme with each other as the Gaelic lines
themselves do. The School of Cork continued to flourish for many
centuries, even after the Danes had established themselves there,
in 874 we find recorded the death of a "Scribe of Cork",
and in 891 we are told of the death of a certain son of Connudh,
"a scribe, wise man, bishop and abbot of Cork". In 1134
the ancient monastery and School of Cork, which had fallen into
decay, were refounded by the celebrated Cormac MacCarthy, King of
Munster. (See FINBARR, SAINT.)